Being Scared of the Unknown

A lot of people’s fear about the idea of a stateless society isn’t even about a lack of “government,” so much as it is a fear of “something-that’s-not-familiar-to-me.” Most of the questions about “how will this work?” just come from people having a hard time picturing something they’ve never seen.

For example, does anyone in the U.S. say, “But how will food be produced and distributed if government doesn’t do it?” Of course not, because they see voluntary exchange doing it, every day (despite the tentacles of state interference).

They do, however, ask, “But how would protection work?” because most of them have not seen private protection. So a lot of the resistance from statists isn’t from being scared of freedom, but just from being scared of the unknown.

Larken Rose is an anarchist author best known for challenging the IRS to answer questions about the federal tax liability of citizens, and being put in prison with no questions answered. He is the author of The Most Dangerous Superstition.